


The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

by gsparkle



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ballet, Christmas, F/M, The Nutcracker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 08:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2844410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gsparkle/pseuds/gsparkle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint has noticed that, during the month of December, Natasha disappears daily, coming back to the Tower hours later in a swirl of peppermint and grace. She refuses to tell him where she goes, but Clint is a resourceful guy and he's determined to find out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas, y'all! I hope everyone is having a wonderful, happy, and safe December!
> 
> As always, thanks to my favorite people/betas, santiagoinbflat and baygull!

Natasha became more graceful over the holidays.

Clint didn't know how else to describe it. The woman already moved like poetry come to life; but around Christmas, it seemed like more of her kicks had pirouettes involved, and he was fairly certain that her toes pointed as she leapt from one building to another.

He asked around the Tower to see if anyone else had noticed, but nobody spent as much time with Natasha as he did. It also seemed as though nobody else had noticed that she had been slipping away every afternoon for a while now, coming back a few hours later smelling like peppermint. “Why don’t you just ask her?” Bruce said reasonably after Clint cornered him in the kitchen. _Yeah, right._ Like you could just come right out and ask Natasha something. He’d asked her some leading questions the day before, earning him nothing but a particularly condescending glare.

 _Fine._ If she wasn't going to tell him, he was just going to have to follow her. Clint snatched up his phone and dialed Kate’s number. “I need you to do me a favor,” he said when she picked up.

“No.”

“Come on, you don’t even know what it is,” Clint wheedled. “It’ll be fun. I’ll get you some of those new trick arrows Stark is making for me.”

“No.”

Clint sighed as he relinquished his trump card. “It involves Natasha.” Kate _worshipped_ Natasha, whom she viewed as the most elegant ass-kicker around. It was her fondest wish that the Russian spy would take her under a wing and eventually adopt her. He could hear the gears turning over in Kate’s head as she considered.

“Fine,” she said finally. “But I still want the arrows.” _Naturally._ Clint outlined the plan to his protégé and sent her off with instructions to report back to him that evening.

It was therefore a huge surprise when Natasha came storming into his apartment that afternoon, pulling a miserable Kate along with her. “Um, hey Nat--”

“You had me _followed?_ ” she demanded indignantly. “I am literally the best spy in the world, Clint. In the world! Did you think I wouldn't recognize the same face in the crowd? She’s wearing a _purple_ coat!” Clint frowned at Kate, who shrugged sheepishly.

“I only have the one coat,” she said in explanation.

Clint threw up his hands in frustration. “Borrow your girlfriend’s next time!” Not that there’d be a next time, because now Natasha was going to dump him in an unmarked grave. “You’re not getting the arrows anymore.”

“I know,” Kate said morosely, though the tone seemed to be caused more by the fact that Natasha was watching them with a murderous look in her eyes.

Clint looked at Kate’s downcast face and felt terrible. “I’m sorry, that was mean. You did your best. I’ll still get you the arrows, kid.” He gently pushed her to the door. “Tell America I say hi.” Once he’d watched her enter the elevator (Kate was a chronic eavesdropper), he closed the door and turned back to Natasha with a wince. “She’s really a great kid, excellent archer, worships the ground you walk on…”

“Oh, I know,” Natasha said with a deceptively casual shrug. “She mentioned all this to me as I was dragging her back here. I think she wants me to adopt her. Which I’m not going to do for many reasons, mostly because now I have to go on the run, because you sent an eighteen year old to follow me and now I have to kill you.” She stood braced in his entryway, wearing the neutral face that Clint had learned was the most dangerous one she made. And she smelled like peppermint, again. “Barton. Why are you having me followed by a teenager?”

“Because you smell different!” Clint exploded, shouldering past her into the living room and snatching his coffee up. “You smell like peppermint, and you keep disappearing, and you won’t tell me why.” He sipped at his coffee, mostly to avoid watching Natasha’s eyes narrow; it was cold and he took it to the sink.

“So, because I _smell different_ I’m up to something nefarious?”

“I didn't say nefarious,” Clint said stubbornly over the sound of the water. “I just wanted to know where you go.” He heard her slide out of her wool coat and settle into his couch as he dried his hands. Joining her, he mumbled to his lap, “I just like to know where you are. Physically and mentally, I mean. You've been different since the beginning of December and I don’t know why.” He hunched his shoulders. “I know it sounds dumb.”

The fire in her eyes had died down by the time he dared look up at her. “It’s not dumb,” she said quietly, taking one of his calloused hands between her own. Natasha did this sometimes when she was thinking, and one day he’d stop wishing that she was thinking of him while she did so. “It’s nice that you care. I’m just very... private, you know?”

God, he felt like an ass. “I’m sorry, Nat. I had no right. You don’t have to tell me anything.”

“I know.” She watched his face for a minute before her mouth thinned into a line. “But I will.”

“Are you sure?” Clint asked, peering anxiously at her, but there was already an unfamiliar faraway look in her eyes.

“It’s not like the Red Room was this public organization, the way everyone knows about the CIA. It had a front that served as a reasonable excuse for collecting talented children from their villages and bringing them to Stalingrad. They said they were a prestigious ballet company, the Bolshoi Theater. But you can’t have a ballet company without ballerinas, of course, so part of the brainwashing program involved placing memories of training and performing. I know hours of choreography spanning every major ballet.”

She was still turning Clint’s hand between hers, tracing lines without looking. “Did you actually perform?” he asked softly, unsure if he was saying the right thing.

Her eyes met his. “I’ll never know,” she said frankly. “I have to assume that I did. Even in the Soviet Union, I think people would ask questions about a ballet company that never performed. But if there was record of any of that, it burned with the rest of the Red Room long ago.” She shrugged and Clint wondered if it had been hard to make peace with that lack of crucial information, how long it had taken for her to be able to only shrug when it was mentioned.

So many things about her made sense now. The way she avoided the classical music station like the plague. The fact that she dragged him to see the Nutcracker every year but found a reason to step out just as the Sugar Plum Fairy took the stage. The grace that followed her into battle and the tiny toe shoe keychain attached to her car keys. What still didn't make sense, though, was where the hell she was disappearing to.

“So when you sneak out of here, it’s because you’re dancing?” Clint asked tentatively, wondering where the peppermint came in and why she couldn't just dance in one of the practice rooms at the Tower gym.

“In a way,” Natasha said, tilting her head down so that her hair fell as a screen in front of her face. “The year after I joined SHIELD I earned my first holiday bonus. I didn't know what to do with it. I was already being paid, which was new in itself, and I didn't really need the extra money. I was up here in the city, had just finished a job, and I walked past this little dance studio on a block of boarded up storefronts. There was broken glass and beer bottles in front of the place, but the kids inside were just--I don’t know what it was. I didn't know I had a heart until they pulled on it that day. I cashed in my bonus check and sent it to them the next day, and I've been sending them money every year. A few years back I walked in and said, ‘Hey, I’m your anonymous donor,’ and since then, they've let me teach for the month of December.”

Clint was floored. He’d known from day one, from the moment she’d walked into his crosshairs, that Natasha was cut from a unique cloth, one woven with generosity and merely printed with violence. Still, never in his life would he have expected pragmatic Natasha, ruthless Natasha, to have a secret life as a _children’s ballet teacher_ , of all things.

He gently reached for the curtain of hair separating him from her face and pushed it behind her ear. She looked at him with eyes that were a little wet, and he wiped his thumb across her cheek to catch an errant teardrop. “It just makes me feel like I’m a better person than I actually am, you know? Like maybe this is who I could have been.”

Clint thought his heart might break. “I don’t know if anyone has told you recently,” he said gently, “but you’re already the best person I know. There is no ‘better’ to achieve.” Natasha rolled her eyes at that, but she gave him a watery smile before swiping at her eyes. He let her change the subject, and then he let her pick a movie, and they watched _Die Hard_ as if she hadn't just revealed a sizable chunk of her soul to him.

“You can come, if you want,” she said as the credits rolled. The last time her voice had been this shy, they’d met Baryshnikov at a gala for the Guggenheim ( _another_ reaction that now made sense). “To my class tomorrow, I mean. They’d be thrilled if you taught them some circus moves, tumbling or whatever.” Clint stood to turn his lights back on and when he turned around she was right next to him with a guarded expression on her face. “Don’t feel like you have to, though.”

Clint looked down into her bright green eyes. “I’d love to,” he said sincerely, enjoying the way a small pleased smile unfurled across her face. “I’m already looking forward to it.”

“Okay,” Natasha said hesitantly, and before he could ask what she was hesitating about she had wrapped him in a tight hug. “You’re still a jerk for stalking me, but thanks for caring.” He felt her eyelashes flutter against him as she pressed a kiss to his cheek, and then she was gone, leaving the scent of peppermint in her wake.

\---

“You really didn't have to come,” Natasha said for the fifth time as they trudged together against the freezing wind. Clint heaved a sigh and stuck his arm out to stop her.

“Natasha,” he said with exasperation, turning and placing a hand on each shoulder. “You’re right. I didn’t have to come. I wanted to come, I want to be here.” He looked her in the eye and waited until she blinked and nodded. “Well, really, I want to be there and inside, because I’m freezing.” She finally grinned and Clint dropped his hands before he did something stupid, like lean in to kiss her. They resumed their trek through a neighborhood that was becoming progressively shadier. Windows were barred or boarded up, and trash littered the street. He was about to start asking questions about her studio’s security when they turned the corner and there it was.

Natasha had described a tiny hole in the wall on a block of boarded up stores, but that description was wildly outdated. The money she’d been sending had evidently gone towards an expansion, as the studio now filled half a block’s worth of space. When they got close, Clint could see that the plate glass windows that looked directly into individual practice spaces had a shatterproof coating, and noticed subtle security alarms that were much more expensive than the average dance studio in this area could afford. He watched a motley collection of children cluster on the other side of the glass, waving enthusiastically at Natasha, and couldn't help but smile.

“Stop smiling,” Natasha ordered out of the corner of her mouth as she waved back with a genuinely happy grin.

“Make me,” Clint shot back as he followed her into the lobby. Natasha greeted the receptionist and loitering parents with warm familiarity, introducing him merely as “my friend Clint” before heading into the back to change. Clint hung his coat on a brightly colored peg and avoided the vaguely predatory gaze of the single mothers hovering in the waiting area until a cheer from the children in the small dance room drew him in.

Natasha stood surrounded by the herd of children, dressed in a black leotard and some kind of pink gauzy skirt Clint previously would have sworn she’d never be caught dead in. On the other hand, he also would have sworn that he’d never hear a chorus of children excitedly addressing her as “Miss Natasha.” It was adorable, and he'd never seen a more tender expression cross her face. He raised an eyebrow in her direction, and it might have been the first time he’d ever seen her blush.

“This is my friend, Mister Clint,” she said as she placidly prodded her students into lines. He waved from his spot in the corner before she continued, “if you’re all extra good today, he has a special Christmas surprise for you.” The children fidgeted with excitement and snuck unsubtle looks in his direction as Natasha began to lead them through stretches.

Watching Natasha interact with children made Clint fall in love with her on a completely new level. There was gentleness about her that he almost never got to see, and yet in this building it was her most prominent feature. Her hands were soft as she helped one struggling child arrange her feet correctly. She gifted another girl with a smile so full of praise that he thought the entire room might be brighter. Her students laughed often and she joined them, bright eyes dancing over to Clint time and time again. He could have been content to watch her dance with these children all day, skirt fluttering as she joyfully flowed from one move to the next; but he suddenly tuned back into her instructions and discovered that he was being summoned to the front of the classroom.

“Is Mister Clint your boyfriend?” one particularly bold little girl asked, pigtails bobbing.

“No,” Natasha replied swiftly, just as Clint, standing behind her, nodded his head vigorously. The kids giggled and Natasha shot him a look that said _not now, Barton_ , which he chose to completely ignore. “Mister Clint used to be in the circus,” she pressed on with enthusiasm, “and because you've all behaved so well today, he’s going to teach you some of his special circus moves.”

Clint didn't have time to flirt with Natasha after that, as he was too busy rolling out mats and making sure that quiet Jamal in the back didn't crack his skull open during a simple somersault. The two of them moved around the room, adjusting wrists and tucking elbows until every kid was able to complete a series of rolls and cartwheels across the soft blue mats.

“I see a lot of broken vases in their futures,” Natasha predicted as they leaned against the mirror and supervised. Clint laughed and tucked an escaped curl of hair behind her ear.

“Prepare to receive a lot of complaints,” he agreed, leaning closer and totally ignoring the lines of children rolling across the mats.

“Are you going to kiss?” A blonde little girl with chubby red cheeks had materialized at his elbow. _Well, now we’re not_ , Clint thought as he hauled the girl back to the mats.

“No,” Natasha said with a laugh, but the look she gave him said _but maybe later_. “Mister Clint is going to show us how to do a backbend.” The rows of children stared with rapt attention as Clint dug into his circus training and bent himself backwards into a bridge, then kicked his feet off the ground and walked around Natasha on his hands. When he finally flipped himself upright again, the class erupted with small-handed applause and even Natasha looked mildly impressed.

Clint used the energy the kids still had left to teach them how to safely bend their backs, and watched as a field of wobbly little bridges popped off the mats. He moved around adjusting tiny arms and legs, making sure no parent would come charging in with a spine realignment bill next week. He could feel Natasha watching him as they carefully helped each child push through a back walkover, small legs flying. She was still watching him as they handed out candy canes ( _aha!_ ) and hugs before ushering their now slightly more dangerous collection of children back to their parents.

“You were really great with those kids,” she said with a little nudge as they watched parents bundle their children into puffy winter jackets and knit hats. “They’ll be asking for you to come back.” It was an innocuous statement, but her voice sounded heavy, like she had meant to say something else entirely. He looked at her, head tilted in silent speculation, until finally she let out the breath she’d been holding, took his hand, and said, “Come with me.”

She tugged him across the room they’d just used, through a storage room filled with portable barres and more tulle than Clint thought needed to exist, and into another small practice room. There were no windows in this one, just one long mirror and a track of halogen lights on the ceiling. Natasha walked him over to a stereo tower in one corner and shoved a stack of CDs into his hands. “Pick one.”

Clint looked through them, heart falling as he recognized titles: _Swan Lake, Coppelia, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle_. Through his lashes, he could see that she was pulling a pair of soft pink pointe shoes out of a cabinet. “Which one is your favorite?” he asked, lowering his voice in this empty room that echoed.

Natasha pinned him with a hard look. “The Black Widow is not allowed to have favorites,” she said dismissively, looking away.

Clint reached out, tipped her chin until she met his eyes again. “But Natasha Romanoff is.” He held out the collection of CDs to her, wanting it to be her choice, wanting more than ever for every action she took to be hers alone. Natasha hesitated, then slid one case out of his grasp and placed its CD in the stereo. She already looked unfamiliar with the leotard and tights, and now that she had those satin shoes on her feet and a nervous frown on her face, she was almost unrecognizable. Natasha, after all, was never nervous about anything. He noticed a small bench in the front corner and sank into it as she pressed play.

He almost wanted to laugh as the tinkly music rose from the stereo, because _of course_ that was why she left when the Sugar Plum Fairy came on, _of course_ that was her favorite role; but any laughter died in his throat as he caught her expression. Her mouth was curved in a ballerina’s warm smile, like she could laugh at any second, but her usually bright eyes were completely frozen and dull. He had never hated an expression more. Clint had always enjoyed this movement of the ballet (it placed second after Mother Ginger, because he took bizarre pleasure in the clown car aspect of her giant skirt), but now he found the music sinister.

She was beautiful, though; a true master of the art. They’d been working together for eight years, so he’d sat through eight different dances of the Sugar Plum Fairy, and he truly thought Natasha was the best of them all. Was it the lightness of her feet? The practiced curve of her arm? Was it the light bouncing off her fiery hair that gave her a little extra brilliance?

Maybe it was that the soft slip of a woman in front of him spent the majority of her time as a razor-sharp blade. Maybe it was just because he loved her.

She spun faster and farther on the little cardboard blocks inside her shoes, the music whirling her around the room at a dizzying tempo until she ended her dance with a flourish. After a moment’s silence, Clint could see Natasha pushing the Black Widow back into her box as she gracefully slid to the floor, could see the way the unfeeling coldness slid out of focus. She was waiting for him to say something, a nervous energy radiating from her like he’d never seen before.

God did he want to say the right thing. _I love you?_ Accurate, but not the time. _You’re incredible?_ Also accurate, but she might think that he hadn't noticed that there had been someone else behind those eyes. Clint peeled through every possible option he had in seconds before crossing to the center of the room, where she sat unwrapping the ribbons from her ankles. She didn't look up as he settled himself next to her.

“Thanks for sharing this with me,” he said as sincerely as he could, hoping he didn't sound too earnest. “I’m honored.”

Natasha snorted a little. “It’s just ballet, Clint,” she said, and her quick glance told him that they both knew she was lying.

“Even so,” he said in acceptance of her deflection, and then paused, unsure of how to pitch his next question. “Um… would you like--that is, if you wanted, we could go see the Nutcracker tomorrow at the Lincoln Center?” He’d never volunteered to go before; Natasha usually employed some combination of bribery, blackmail, and outright threats to get him to attend with her. She looked up at him with bald skepticism. “It’s a nice show,” he said, defensive. “I like the lady with the skirt full of clowns.”

“It’s very nice,” she agreed, voice soft and hesitant. Neither of them said anything, letting the CD that nobody had turned off continue to spin melodies through the still air. They were listening to the Spanish dance when Natasha asked, under the flare of the horns, “Will you hold my hand?”

Clint immediately reached out and took one of her pale hands in his, mirroring her absent-minded movements from the day before. “I meant tomorrow,” she said with a small roll of her eyes. “During--during the dance.” She swallowed hard as she looked up.

He knew. “I know,” he said, sending her a reassuring smile when she met his gaze. “Just practicing.” She shook her head at that, but didn't take her hand back until they stood a few minutes later to leave.

\---

At the tower the next night, Clint let Natasha finagle Tony’s box seats from him, and knotted the candy cane tie she handed him with only one complaint. In the theater, he bought a chocolate orange at the concession stand, like he did every year, and let “not hungry” Natasha eat half of it, like she did every year. When the time came for her usual trip to the bathroom, Clint felt her squeeze his hand like a boa constrictor.

“You alright?” he whispered as the familiar celesta music trickled from the speakers. He looked down and, from the glassy-eyed panic that washed over her face, assumed the answer was no. Before he could say anything else, though, Natasha turned and buried her face into his neck. _Oh, no_ , he thought, using the hand not currently being squeezed to cautiously rub her shaking back. He thought they’d sit like that for the entire movement, but halfway through, when the music crescendoed towards the end, she sat back in her chair, stock still.

“I want to watch,” she said, softer than a whisper, hand still clenching Clint’s. He couldn't watch the stage; he could only look at the ballerina’s double reflection in Natasha’s unblinking eyes. The music rose, and rose, and Natasha was biting her lip hard, and then the dance was over in a fury of applause. Clint was waiting until she released his hand to say anything, but though she relaxed her death grip, she didn't let go. “That was beautiful,” she said, almost sad in the dimmed lights.

Clint didn't know what to do, or how to tell her that she was magnificent and perfect, exactly as she was. Why did he think this show was a good idea? _Yeah, that’s the way to make everything better, Barton, take her to the ballet that’s most likely to traumatize her_. Jesus. No wonder everyone at SHIELD had thought he was too stupid to breathe.

As he panicked, Natasha turned her face up to his and said with a hint of a smile, “I’m glad I stayed this year.” Clint closed his eyes in sheer relief for a moment, then dropped his forehead to hers.

“I’m glad you did, too,” he murmured, searching her eyes for sadness and finding none. He dropped his eyes to her lips and warred with himself -- _Kiss her! No! Yes! Absolutely not!_ \-- then sat back in his seat heavily, unable to convince himself that she’d welcome an advance after being consumed with such indescribable emotion only a song earlier. He could tell that she was studying him as the celebration of sweets unfolded across the stage, but he didn't care. There was an abundance of better scenarios to tell her how he felt, so he pushed those feelings away and focused on the show.

“Clint,” Natasha said as the Dance of the Flowers, the penultimate dance, began. He leaned distractedly in her direction with a “hmm,” eyes still on the floaty petaled skirts on the stage. “Clint,” she said again, more urgently, and he thought maybe something was wrong again, so he turned his head to look at her and--

And she was pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth, and he was too busy reaching for her to be shocked. He pulled her close and kissed her back, trying not to mess up her somewhat elaborate hairstyle. That bright red lipstick was not going to wipe off his face easily, but _god who cares_ , she was here and she was kissing him and there was even a beautiful soundtrack.

“I think that was my favorite showing of the Nutcracker in our entire friendship,” Clint said with a friendly leer as they left the box a few breathless and mildly disheveled minutes later. Well, he was disheveled; Natasha, as always, looked flawless.

“Ugh, don’t be so lecherous,” she groaned as they descended the carpeted stairs to the lobby. She stopped and rubbed her thumb over a missed lipstick mark next to his mouth. “You make it sound like we defiled those box seats.”

“Tony probably has,” Clint pointed out.

Natasha blanched. “That’s disgusting.”

Clint shrugged as they stepped into the town car waiting for them at the curb. “We could defile this car,” he suggested as they pulled away from the curb. “It’s new.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “You’re gross,” she complained, but she leaned into him as they turned a corner and whispered, “Maybe another time.” Her eyes shone as they met his, and when she curled her hands around his, he was for once positive of what she thinking.

 

 


End file.
